By Benjamin Leatherman
Believe or not, William Katt's gonna be in the Valley this weekend.
One of my favorite shows as wee lad of six or seven years old undoubtedly had to be The Greatest American Hero. While the ABC superhero show wasn’t as high-tech and cool as say, Knight Rider or the A-Team, it was still a program I tuned into religiously. Every week I sat in the living room of my family’s home in Mesa and watched actor William Katt portray a bumbling caped crusader whose powers were granted by aliens. I was probably enraptured by the show since I – like most kids – dreamed of being able to soar through the air like Katt did every week (albeit in a stumbling, bumbling fashion).
For those who don’t remember the show’s plot, it involved a high school teacher named Ralph Hinkley receiving a super suit by benevolent aliens who wanted to bring justice to our planet. On his way home from the close encounter, however, Hinkley loses the suit’s instruction manual and doesn’t quite master its powers.
Here’s the intro to the show, featuring its trademark theme song “Believe it or Not” by Joey Scarbury:
Decades later I still catch the show whenever its re-run on cable and have belted out the theme song at local karaoke nights. I also was thrilled to see Katt’s cameo in this week’s episode of NBC superhero drama Heroes.
If you’re as a big a fan of Katt and the show, then you should head down to Atomic Comics (4537 East Cactus Road, 602-923-0733) tonight as he’ll will be making an in-store appearance from 6-9 p.m. and will be promoting a new line of comic books he’s created. The dude’s currently the co-publisher for the indie Catastrophic Comics and penned its debut comic book series, Sparks, which is described as a “superhero noir thriller based in the late 1940s” that involves a masked vigilante. Katt has also been working on a Greatest American Hero comic book series, which will debut later this fall.
If you can’t make it out to tonight’s appearance, Katt will also be appearing from 3-6 p.m. tomorrow at the Atomic Comics location in Chandler (3155 West Chandler Boulevard, 480-940-6061).
Visit www.atomiccomics.com for more info.
